Self-examination

Self-examination is about looking closely at the morality of your own conduct, motivations and actions. It is essential if you want to attain personal excellence. Try to get into the good habit of examining your own thoughts, feelings, and behaviour for each day. Not only do you want to remember the good qualities so that you can maintain or improve them. More important are the negative ones which you must eradicate. Each night before getting into bed, recall what you thought, how you felt and how you behaved during the day.

Your thinking, feeling and behaviour need to be guided by your moral values. If not, you must want to know why not. Be aware of the reasons so that you do not repeat them. They are your weaknesses that have to be eliminated. Only you know whether you consistently adhere to your guiding principles or compromise your principles by doing or saying things which you know you shouldn't. There are many people who don't even know themselves. Ultimately, it's you who will have to decide the kind of person you want to be. A thorough self-examination will help you to get to the truth of yourself and be a person of dignity – almost free, if not completely free, of unjust, dishonest, or immoral actions which are becoming increasingly common nowadays.

Summon up your courage and look at yourself objectively. Be realistic enough to admit you are not a perfect person just like anyone else. It's not a shame not to be perfect; it is a shame to have too many imperfections. Identify what your faults are, and firmly decide what traits you are lacking, For example, do you completely lack confidence? Perhaps you simply lack the courage to interact with other people? This is the type of self-examination that you should commit yourself to, and begin to take responsibility to correct them.

Your self-examination must never fail to include examining the limitations in your mind. This is a common problem. Your experiences and past conditioning have created in you a set of beliefs. Whether these beliefs are really true or not is not important to you. What is important is whether or not you accept them as true. Once you accept them as true, you will always act in accordance with them. Unfortunately, most of your beliefs are false. They are your limitations. You can only be as successful as the changes you make to your beliefs. Know your beliefs by examining yourself.

There is much to self-examine about in your life. For example, why are people avoiding you? Is it because of your arrogant attitude? Why people don’t talk much to you? Is it because you never listen attentively to what they say or you interrupt too many times? When you do voluntary work for others, are you being sincere? What are your motivations? Are they free from pretence or deceit? Each time you self-examine and take corrective actions, you become a better person.